Scott L. Malcomson

A former senior advisor at the United Nations and the U.S. State Department, and formerly foreign editor (2004-11) at the New York Times Magazine, Scott Malcomson is a political-risk and communications consultant.

Born in 1961 in California, Malcomson grew up in Oakland and graduated from UC Berkeley, where he first learned journalism while writing and editing for The Daily Californian. Malcomson moved east in 1984 and began writing for the mainstream and alternative press in New York City, particularly The Village Voice. Among the many publications he has written for are The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The New York Times, The New Republic, Transition, Lettre Internationale, Film Quarterly, Daily Beast, ArtForum, Huffington Post, Colors and The Nation. He has also published several articles in scholarly journals and collections and lectured at universities in the US, Europe and China. He was director of communications for International Crisis Group 2013-15 and The Berggruen Institute 2012-13. He was editorial advisor to Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen for their book The New Digital Age (2014) and has designed and taught courses on journalism and entrepreneurism at New York University.

Malcomson's writing has tended to focus on foreign affairs, literature, and American history (particularly race). He has worked in Africa and Latin America, the Pacific Islands, China, Turkey and Central Asia, and throughout Europe and North America. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a longtime member of PEN.

Malcomson has published four books, all available from Amazon: Tuturani: A Political Journey in the Pacific Islands; Empire's Edge: Travels in Southeastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia (also available in Turkish); One Drop of Blood; The American Misadventure of Race; and Generation's End: A Personal Memoir of American Power after 9/11 (also available in Chinese).